(Thursday, February 7, 2019) waxing crescent moon Pisces, tarot 8 of swords
I drove Jeanne Cowan to her knee surgery on Wednesday, then brought her home and stayed overnight to make sure she could manage her pain and her ability to walk.
A motion-detecting knick-knack of two little cardinals rests on a shelf near her stairs and front closet. As I draped my coat on a hanger the red birds started to sing wildly. We both laughed. “Jim is here,” Jeanne said. Her theory is that the spirit of her deceased husband Jim Jankowicz activates the birdies. It seems true enough, because I passed by the cardinals many times over the next two days and they never made a sound. They cry when I first enter the house and then are silent.
I slept in the guest room upstairs, next to Jim’s old bedroom and across from Jeanne’s room. The last time I stayed at the house I saw an illuminated orb hover over the top of Jim’s funeral urn. A shade fell crashing from a window, along with a few other odd events I have forgotten. He greeted me in multiple ways.
This time I awaken in the middle of the night with sleep paralysis. Lying flat on my belly, a mysterious pressure pushes my whole body into the mattress. Eventually I am able to break free.
I fall quickly back to sleep. Suddenly, my phone chimes more loudly than I have ever heard before. Bells are ringing like a cathedral. I reach over to grab the mobile from the night table. The screen is flashing and alerting me that the battery charge is almost empty, so I put my hand behind the headboard to push the charger into the wall outlet more firmly.
The charger thunks onto the wooden floor. Irritated, I get out of bed to turn on the lights, but the lamp on the table does not work. Neither does the lamp on the wall. I lucidly understand this as a false awakening, because the experience is one of hyper-reality. As I stand by the door, recognizing the dream state, I hear Jeanne’s voice issue a firm, one-sentence directive from Jim’s room.
Her voice is much deeper than normal. Masculine. I sense she is standing in the dark, wearing a black priest’s robe. I cross the threshold, enter the room, and my body dissolves into the void. Jeanne’s presence disappears.
I remember her directive (even though when I truly awaken it is forgotten) and move out of the void, back into my physical form. I step into her bedroom. She is lying delicately on her mattress. Her body is weak. I slide my arms beneath it and lift her out of bed, carrying her over to a west-facing, rough-hewn square window that overlooks a large green field. The atmosphere over the field is the grey void.
Jeanne kneels and rests against the wall, talking quietly with me. I stand, looking outside. There is no glass or screen covering the window, so I lean out as if reaching through a Dutch half-door.
I see a young, round-faced boy, perhaps 4 or 5 years old, playing alone in the field. It feels like I am viewing the distant past, and that the little boy is Jim. I watch him for a long time.
Day notes:
When I tell Jeanne the dream, she says that Jim used to stay with his grandmother at her farm during the day. His parents were working at their small-town newspaper in Verdigre, Nebraska. The bed I slept on once belonged to Jim’s grandmother.
This is the same day I found out about the male gender of my grandchild. Is this related in some way? My father’s name is also Jim. He grew up on a farm and had a Czech grandmother, just like Jim Jankowicz. The farmhouse my father lived in had a Dutch door in the kitchen.